‘Purge’ puts spotlight on Birn

EFP Shooting Stars 2013: Laura Birn

Euro Film Promotion will showcase 10 up-and-comers at a press event Feb. 10 in Berlin:

Laura Birn

Finland

Credits: “Purge” (2012), “Naked Harbor” (2012), “August Fools” (2013)

Birn’s searing performance in Antti Jokinen’s “Purge” as a young woman who betrays her sister in Soviet-occupied Estonia in the 1950s received the rare accolade for a Finnish actress of being nominated for a Satellite Award by the Intl. Press Academy (alongside the likes of Jennifer Lawrence and Keira Knightley). “Laura Birn delivered a very complex performance in ‘Purge,’ ” said the jury. “The choices of her character in the course of the film were hard to accept, but, through her performance, we were able to accept and understand why the character behaved as she did.”